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Department ofCivil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

Water Resources

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An illustration with a damn, the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, a high speed train, green buildings and a wetland.Protecting and Enhancing Our Precious Water Resources

Water Resource Engineers are at the forefront of developing adaptive strategies to cope with changing water conditions and weather events. Their work is crucial for ensuring clean drinking water and efficient resource management. By leveraging advanced technologies like Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, and computer modeling, Water Resource Engineers can predict floods and devise innovative flood mitigation techniques and water storage solutions. Collaborating with various stakeholders, they create integrated water management strategies that balance social, economic, and environmental needs, impacting public health and quality of life.

 

Using ancient hidden waterways to restore California’s aquifers and stop towns from sinking.

USGS image of man standing next to a wood telephone pole with three signs on it that indicate the ground level during the given year. The first sign, at the base, reads 1977. The second sign, 4.5 meters up, reads 1955. The third sign reads 1925 and is 9 meters up the pole. The pole’s final sign reads, “San Joaquin Valley, California, BM S661, Subsidence 9 m, 1925-1977”.

USGS image of the maximum land subsidence in the Central Valley between 1925 and 1977 due to pumping of groundwater. (Source USGS.gov)

Using high-tech antennas hanging from helicopters, scientists are pinging the ground with electromagnetic signals to map the geology deep below the surface.  They are looking for paleo valleys, which are old, underground waterways carved by ancient glaciers and later filled with highly porous sand and gravel from flood events caused when the ancient glaciers melted.  Water resource engineers want to use these waterways to funnel flood waters into the existing aquifers that desperately need to be recharged.  The excessive pumping of groundwater out of these aquifers has caused the Central Valley to subside over 30 feet in places.  One town sunk 11.5 ft in just 14 years.

Water and Climate Justice Lab at SCU

A group of ten people holding up their phones with the screen facing out as part of a small focus group with smallholder farmers testing a forecasting app.

With climate change, smallholder farmers in the world’s most vulnerable regions struggle to predict when to plant and harvest crops. The Water and Climate Justice Lab at SCU brings together faculty, students, and non-profit partners to create and distribute solutions. In Northern Nicaragua, farmers now have access to a new forecasting app that provides both seasonal forecasts and short-term forecasts for 5, 10, and 15 days ahead that are compared to historical data.  The app supports farmers’ decision making, helping them adapt to the impacts of climate change.